What are the chances Obama will read your letter to him?

August 3, 2009

By Dave Cook

“Letters to the President” is a new White Housevideo that provides a behind-the-scenes look at how 10 letters from individual citizens make it to Barack Obama’s desk every day – with some destined to get a hand-written reply.

At the start of his administration, Mr. Obama asked staff members to give him a selection of letters each day from the flood that comes into the White House. Mark Kelleher, White House director of correspondence, says 65,000 print letters arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue each week. That is in addition to the 100,000 e-mails, 1,000 faxes, and 2,500 phone calls that come in daily.

Getting Obama out of the bubble

On the nearly six-minute video, Mr. Kelleher talks about the bubble in which presidents live and says, “our job is to make sure he gets out of it every day.” Obama "desperately wants to get" the messages citizens send, he says.

The White House-produced video shows Obama, on a Saturday, sitting in the Oval Office in a sports shirt and no tie. The letters “do more to keep me in touch with what is happening around the country than anything else,” the president says on camera. A significant amount of his mail is about healthcare issues, he says. “A lot of the stories are heartbreaking,” Obama adds. Correspondence from citizens is “a powerful motivator for me.”